Sheida Soleimani's work Mahsa, currently included in the outdoor exhibition Eyes on Iran, was discussed on Cultured.
"Other Iranian artists and activists are of course actively participating in Eyes on Iran, too. Soleimani’s entire extended family is still in Iran, and her father and mother only escaped as political refugees, having been targeted and tortured by the regime with multiple arrests and solitary confinement. “I grew up with people that had never known what freedom was,” the artist shares, “and the dinner table was a place where we would talk about the happenings of the world.” For Eyes on Iran, Soleimani paid homage to Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian woman who was killed in police custody following a detainment due to her “inappropriate” donning of her hijab. Entitled Mahsa, the photograph centers a hand holding a hijab on fire, its backdrop inverted images of Amini’s brain scans. “We don’t want intervention,” says Soleimani when asked about the broader goals of Eyes on Iran. “This is about spreading awareness and elevating voices.” The artist contends that the removal of Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women would be an unprecedented action as no other country has been removed in the past. And the next step? “Remove Iran from the United Nations Charter itself,” Soleimani emphasizes. “Because there's no place for a government that tortures and brutalizes people to have voting shares or rights at a table of countries that provide democracy.”
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